Thursday, December 29, 2011

It's Like a Caucus: Struggles with Self-Publish Marketing

by Stella Atrium
________________

When
the Iowa caucuses roll around every four years, voters are subjected to
complaints about retail politics, how candidates must visit every
county and shake hands in living rooms, backyards, and coffee shops
while they endure litmus tests about narrative, purity and
electability. And this is BEFORE voters review the candidates platform
on his website or position statement on various issues.

I know how the candidates feel.

I found some easy comparisons with marketing for the self-publisher. Retail marketing, we'll call it. The various author websites where authors gather to promote indie books,
for example, are similar to the early debates where candidates are
allowed to hold up a hand indicating positions on topic as defined by
the liberal press. The only visitors to these sites are other authors
checking their own progress, just like the only viewers of the early
debates are other commentators who have the next debate on a different
network.

Some
candidates have been working at reaching presidential campaign level
for 10 years, (after serving in house or senate or governorships or
charity groundwork), and invested a fortune of family money and donor
money. And that's before the opening bell. Writers also have invested "blood and treasure" in the book or series (along with university work, screenplays, ghostwriting, jingle writing) long before joining Twitter.

What's another comparisons? Soliciting reviews
are like making promises for future connections so the candidate can
gain a public endorsement, and sometimes takes as many visits to the
endorser's home for dinner.

The writer's giveaway
is like campaign headquarters where hats and pins and banners are
stacked in a corner waiting for the volunteers to embrace the novel and
spread word-of-mouth good will.

The first blog tour
where the writer engages a real time chat or printed interview with the
site's manager are similar to the grip-and-grin first meeting with
potential supporters and fundraisers.

Expanding beyond bloggers
in one's genre to begin selling to your own university or book club or
alma mater is like moving from Iowa to New Hampshire for the second
round of primaries. Can the candidate build a ground game to perform in
a different arena?

Developing a YouTube videoto
start a second buzz once the book is released is like those TV
commercials that tout the candidate's family and long record of
service, and just as expensive.

And the results are sometimes just as screwy.

The weighted bestseller list
that floats the list-maker's favorite book type to the top is like Ron
Paul who is winning in early states, but cannot gain the respect of the
liberal media who claim he cannot win, so why interview him?

A book with a few enthusiastic readers on GoodReads gains a bump in ratings and to-read lists until other readers discover the grammar and diction are so poor as to work against the book's good ideas.

It's
possible to push this analogy too far... But in my genre Neil Gaiman
is the Mitt Romney (we like him, kinda) and Steven King is the Newt
Gingrich (full of big ideas the unravel in the plotline).